Captain Rodney Baxter of Hyannis was a man ahead of his time. Born just after the War of 1812, Captain Baxter was one of the more prominent master mariners that Cape Cod produced during the great age of sail.

He was a colorful, vibrant man known just as much for his independent thinking as he was for his swift passages at sea. He had an inquisitive mind, as evidenced by a large and wide-ranging personal library.

The Captain loved music and sang in the choir of the Hyannis Universalist Church and also sang at churches in Boston. He could play the violin and he charmed the ladies. He was a great storyteller and entertained his gentlemen friends while arguing points of theological dogma.

Working his way up from deckhand to captain, Rodney Baxter displayed all of the strengths that made Cape Cod skippers so respected around the world. In 1847 he took the schooner American Belle to Ireland with food for the starving victims of the “Great Famine.”

Surviving a spring storm where his vessel shipped a sea that had him 10 feet under water at one time, he and his helmsman lashed themselves down to weather the storm. At one point, the Belle almost pitch poled when a huge wave drove the bow deep underwater. As the wave passed, both men were momentarily submerged when the stern went under. But never once did Captain Baxter give a thought to “laying to.”

The Belle made it to Ireland and arrived five days ahead of another schooner whose captain was more cautious. The return trip to Boston was the quickest western passage over the Atlantic ever made by the fore-and-aft schooner.

Another time when Captain Baxter had the extreme clipper Flying Scud, he sailed from New York to Marseilles in 19 days, 20 hours, a record passage for a loaded vessel. In 1856, he made a passage from New York to Bombay in 81 days, in spite of having to deal with two mutinies aboard. It was a record never beaten.

Baxter’s reputation as a “driver” held crews in fear of his authority. On this record run, after surviving a hurricane in the Indian Ocean, the afternoon watch crew refused to work to change the sails. He had them all chained and threatened them with flogging. They went aloft and did their work.

During the Civil War as an acting master for the navy, Captain Baxter commanded the steam vessel Mississippi, evading Confederate forces off Charleston, S.C. while moving troops safely to Washington D.C. He later assisted in bringing three loads of soldiers (1,500 men) from Boston to Morehead City, N.C. The crew was restless and the soldiers were all probably a bit seasick. The Captain played his violin to try and pacify them.

When they arrived, tempers were still hot and there was a threat of a mutiny. But the situation was saved by the ringing of the city’s church bells, reminding the crew it was Sunday.

Who could mutiny on a Sunday? Later in the Civil War, the captain served aboard a warship under Admiral David Farragut at the battle for Mobile Bay. He closed his career as master of a steamship, retiring from the sea in 1868.

With this kind of a background, it isn’t surprising that when it came to building his house, Captain Baxter decided that he would do something just a bit different than his neighbors. He became a disciple of Orson Squire Fowler, an eccentric architect who believed that octagonal houses were the key to healthy living. Fowler had written a book in 1848 called A Home For All, or The Gravel Wall and Octagonal Mode of Building. Undoubtedly Captain Baxter had a copy in his library.

Orson Fowler claimed that an octagonal structure was healthier to live in and was also less expensive to build. He believed that the factors peculiar to an octagonal design facilitated an ideal marriage. Fowler pointed out that an octagonal house enclosed one-fifth more space than a square house plan of equal perimeter.

Moreover, an octagonal house, claimed Fowler, would use less heat in the winter, and it would allow more light into rooms since with its eight sides there could be more windows. It wasted less space on hallways since all rooms radiated from one central hall. A spiral staircase in the center of the house would provide for the circulation of fresh air in the summer and heated air in the winter.

Wind resistance was cut down because from whatever direction wintry blasts came they would strike one sharp corner and flow around the structure. As a result of his book, a few thousand octagonal houses were erected, mostly on the east coast and in the Midwest.

Rodney Baxter’s house was built in 1850 and still can be found on the corner of South and Pearl streets in Hyannis. At the time of its construction it was on the highest point of land in the village with a grand view of Hyannis harbor. It is a two-story octagon with 18-inch-thick concrete walls and a flat roof. The roof is trimmed with a bracketed wooden cornice and a wooden verandah with spindle-turned posts and a decorative iron balustrade.

The rooms in Captain Baxter’s octagonal house are formed by three inner walls, which form a wide letter H and extend throughout the height of the house. The two main rooms of each floor are nearly square, while two sides of the house form smaller, oblong rooms. Triangular closets are tucked into the many corners. It is believed that one of the first indoor bathrooms installed in any house in Hyannis was in one of these triangular rooms. Truly, Rodney Baxter was a progressive in all things.

The dining room and kitchen are below ground level, divided by the center wall, each room measuring 15 feet, 11 inches deep by 15 feet, 5 inches wide. A fireplace in the common wall opens into each room, and the windows are at ground level. An almost 15-foot-long hallway, eight feet wide is on one side of the dining room. An alcove of the same dimension opens off the dining room on the other side.

Two living rooms occupy the first floor divided by the center wall, with a common fireplace. The fireplaces were originally faced with imported, lovely tiles and equipped with antique fittings. In the ceiling of one room is a register to circulate the heat to the bedrooms above.

At one end of the living room is the hall and stairway and at the other end is the bathroom. There are three bedrooms and one bath on the second floor. Two of the bedrooms are on the sides of the center wall, and the third is the alcove space.

Every room on each floor is shaped exactly like the room beneath it. When Captain Baxter lived there, the floors on the first floor and in the second floor hallway were parquet. The floors on the second floor were made of oak. A matching concrete octagonal building that served as the carriage house stands southeast of the house.

The captain’s out of the ordinary structure is a reflection of an equally unusual man. Looking at Captain Baxter’s life, it would appear that he built the octagonal house because he seemed to want always to be the center of attention.

The octagonal house certainly achieved that. If he did believe Fowler’s ideas about design, it probably followed that he had to have such a house.

And because of his competitiveness, he may have felt that octagonal houses were the homes of the future and he wanted to be the first to have one.

As in his sailing races with other Cape Cod skippers, Captain Baxter couldn’t stand to be second at anything. Whatever the reasons for the house, we are glad it was built, and it remains with us as a unique and different approach to living.

Captain Baxter’s octagonal house was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1987, 99 years after his death. Nationwide, fewer than 500 of these homes are still standing.